July 31

We’re all very excited to say that Dream is now officially released. It’s been a long journey for us and for those that stuck with us along the way we thank you sincerely for your loyalty. For those just joining us we hope you have fun and enjoy what we’ve created over the past few years.

Changes from Early Access

Now filled with brand new dialogue throughout, full narrative and multiple endings.
The Final Side Dream, New usable items and Collectables are all hidden inside Howard’s dreams for you to find.

With 30 integrated Steam Achievements there is even more reason to explore all of Howard’s Dreams. Fully localised into French, German and Russian.

Small thank you!

Finally we would like to announce the soundtrack by Norman Legies is for sale on Steam now! Currently 50% off for a limited time to those who backed us with Early Access.

Thank you for helping shape Dream to what it is today.

-HyperSloth ːhyperː

Update

Thanks for your patience with the launch build. Could have gone smoother right!

July 17

Thank you.Thank you to all that have helped shape Dream to be what it is.

We are thrilled to announce that the full game will release on 31st July.This is so odd, to tell you a date! - No more excuses of university holding it back.

It's been a great pleasure to interact with you all during it's course of Early Access and as always, thank you for your patience and support through the years it has been on Early Access. We have been very fortunate to be one of the games that got not just praise but critical support throughout its development with some very dedicated people and fans.

If you own Dream right now?

Again, Thanks!
For those of you that currently have the game on Steam it is worth mentioning that your version won't update until July 31st. Once it does update however you can find lots of changes and the story finally implemented such as the final side dream, 3 endings as well as up to 15 different story segments depending on how you play! New voice work, Inventory, Collectables and Localisation as well as the many bug fixes and improvements.

For those that have supported Dream in it's Early Access there will be a small token of appreciation on the Launch Date, so if you haven't already, there is still time to pick up Dream to benefit from this.

Some Story

It is crazy to think that 4 years ago the 3 of us met at university.

It’s honestly shocking to me how fast things moved, we struggled very much for a year to support ourselves when we started this venture.

I'll keep it short here and go into more depth in another post, but where we are now is all thanks to the community behind Dream, especially from it's very early days of donations to play rubbish builds after our failed kickstarter as well as personal letters to us which helped us push through the 'Valley of Death' fundimentally leading to us being able to suspend our studies for a year to crack on with Dream; and here we are now, the final hurdle, studies complete and a new horizon in sight.

Getting to meet you folks at events has also been one of the highlights, we never thought we would get such an opportunity.

Steam Greenlight

About This Game

Dream is an exploration game that takes place within the subconscious mind of Howard Phillips, a young man whose waking hours are tedious and dull, but whose dreams are lucid and powerful. Adventure through these abstract worlds, solve their challenges and discover their secrets in search of the key to Howard’s future.

The different worlds that make up Howard’s dreams can be strange, beautiful or even chilling. They’re filled with puzzles, collectibles and surprises. Snow-covered deserts, endless twisted stairways, haunting nightmares and much more await you.

With non-linear narrative and gameplay you can explore at will and see the story progress according to your choices. Multiple possible endings mean the decisions you make and the dreams you experience will influence how Howard’s future plays out.

The worlds of Howard’s dreams are accompanied by an enchanting original soundtrack from composer Norman Legies. The Dream OST is available to purchase along with the game.

Dream was created by HyperSloth, a team of three students from the University of Huddersfield whose mission is to create unique games suitable for a wide audience and to a high standard. Dream is their first major release.

I hate to give this game a negative review since i've been waiting patiently for two years to play it fresh. Unfortunately this game cannot really be evaluated on its artistic merit due to numerous technical issues:

- Lots of graphical tearing, despite vsync.- Several menu UI problems, many of them painfully obvious, such as inconsistent highlighting of menu options, confused/incorrect localization options, and even disclaimer text on the remapping menu explaining that it doesn't work correctly (!!) - Several in-game control problems, such as apparently incorrectly labelled keybindings. "F", for example, pops a console message, rather than the stated function of "using" an object. Small things like the loss of the mouse pointer when using the catacomb computer can be worked around or figured out but are still rather rough for a finished product. Maybe this is just me but when I found an item to pick up and put it my inventory, I had no idea how to find it again. Collision boxes are also rather rough-and-ready.- I had problems with the voice-overs. The initial house section seemed to "speak" correctly, but in the desert I was unable to hear any speech, although subtitles appeared from time to time. Even the subtitles had misprinted characters (possibly a localization issue? or related to the localization menu confusion?)

Other issues are possible since I stopped playing just after the maze/light puzzles; if patches improve the experience I'll be back to finish it off.

On the positive side I found it pretty good-looking and it definitely has an interesting concept, one I've long been awaiting. But despite the long lead time in early access, this game is not really ready for a true release, particularly at this price. If you're interested in purchasing, I would wait a for a few patch cycles to address some of these problems.

Good music. Ok visuals. But still broken. I want to recommend it but I can't until it's fixed. It's unplayable. The inventory system doesn't work. I can't pick up items in a 'new game' since I have picked them before in a previous run-through. A major chunk of the 25hrs I have on record is fighting those dang 'towers'.

Dream - A game which was in a better state during EARLY ACCESS than in the present full game.

Where am I even going to start? This game is just so broken in so many ways! It doesn't feel complete.

When this game was in Early Access I had literally no problems at all. It felt like a game with still some missing content. I really wanted this game to be a great game, because it had so much potential in early access. Yet... I was disappointed. Even though it's still the first day since out of early access, the game should've been totally complete. That's what we, gamers, should expect. I'll just put down some lesser/greater problems I have/had with this game (since some of them have already been fixed):

-When I first booted this game up, the options menu was all messed up. The options there didn't do the things they were meant to do, for example when I changed the game's language and the voice acting language, it would just make me float around the level. Or when I tried to hide the player, it would show the player (Some of the options now work properly).

-When I entered the first level (Act I - Desert) The game just wouldn't let me go into the sauna in there. There seemed to be an invisible wall blocking my path. This is not meant to happen, confirmed by the developers.

-When I tried to bring up the items by using the "Open Inventory" key, it wouldn't do anything. Later I discovered that it had been changed into the mouse wheel. But when I tried to use it, It wouldn't do a single thing. I was very confused, and found out that it's a bug. I then fixed the bug by deleting some files in a directory, and now the mouse wheel actually scrolled through my items. EXCEPT: When I tried to pick up the Flashlight or the Psychic Paper, they would never appear in the inventory. I still have this problem and it's pretty infuriating.

-The Voice Acting is so quiet that I can't hear anything. In addition to that, the subtitles are not synchronized with the speach, and they sometimes go off the HUD.

-The game has crashed on me so far atleast 3-4 times. Guess it's just an unstable game.

-I can't beat Act II at all. It just takes me to the end of the level, but the game doesn't count it as beaten, leaving me stuck in the game, without making the last piece of the portal. However I have Act III unlocked and I have beaten that already with just two problems that will be listed below.

-In Act III, I can still see those Dream Bible Tracts that were in the game during Early Access. They were inaccessible in locked resort huts, but now they just float in the air without a reason, still being inaccessible.

-Also in Act III, I think I heard that there was going to be another side dream. However, there is none. Or if there is (and if it's that one dream portal that's on the remote island) it doesn't work. I got the "Teleport" item which would occasionally teleport me to the remote island, but when I got there, I couldn't use the damn portal. So that was just a waste of time. If it's somewhere else, then I have no idea how to find it. There just is no space left to explore in the level.

-I've had a few framerate issues, but I can deal with them.

In conclusion: This game would be so good, if only it had no issues that prevent me from touching the game. This was my all time favorite game during early access, but these issues drop it to my least favorite. It has beautiful graphics and music, creative gameplay and exciting puzzles but in the end I just can't overlook these problems.

I can play this game, looking through fingers all of this, but when it comes to recommending this game to others, I just have to say no. Most people won't/can't deal with these problems, and that's why I cannot recommend this game to others.

I most probably won't change this review if these problems get fixed because I'm too lazy.

A game that showed much promise in Early Access, and should still BE in Early Access due to the incredibly buggy state the game is in. This is in no way a "1.0" full release, and is more of a beta, as a lot of the bugs could easily have been picked up by some simple play testing done by the developers.

Once the game is very thoroughly patched with all of the bugs obliterated would I call this a full release. I will change this review when such patches are made.

What can I say that hasn't already been said in great detail by the others who, like me, want to recomend this game, bu can't. The UI is garbage, mostly staying on screen after I've backed out of it. Hit the same sauna wall the others talk about. Interaction with the world is next to impossible, click on the thing to the right, but activates the thing on the left? What is up with these hit boxes? To top it all off, something about this game makes me physically nauseous. I cant pin-point what it is as I've played with the motion blur and stuff. I just can't play it without wanting to purge. I hope the game gets updated to fix these errors, but reading the other reviews it doesn't look promising. Some have waited years and as one user cleverly posted, Hypersloth is really living up to their name...